Relationship Models

The named ways of stating how science and religion relate. This section's baseline is the Complexity model; the others are catalogued because each has governed real institutions and real arguments — including the Conflict model, whose history is the reason the baseline exists.

Model Conflict Science and religion are natural enemies; history is the record of their war. The position of Draper and White, abandoned by historians and alive everywhere else. John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, Richard Dawkins (in his polemical writings) Model Independence Two magisteria, two kinds of question, no trespass: science takes the facts, religion takes the meaning. Gould’s NOMA is the famous modern form. Stephen Jay Gould, Karl Barth (in theological form) Model Dialogue Distinct disciplines in real conversation: each may question and enrich the other, without merger and without war. Ian G. Barbour, John Paul II, John Polkinghorne Model Integration One worldview, deliberately woven: theology re-read in light of science, science interpreted inside a doctrine of creation. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Alfred North Whitehead, Arthur Peacocke Model Complexity The historians’ settlement: no timeless essences, only particular people, institutions, and disputes, whose relations must be told case by case. This site’s baseline. John Hedley Brooke, Peter Harrison, Ronald L. Numbers Model Two Books Nature and Scripture as two books by one Author: where they seem to conflict, the reading — not the book — is at fault. Augustine of Hippo, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon Model Domination Knowledge as power and nature as material: the instrumental program, and its corruption of the Genesis mandate into ownership without accountability. Francis Bacon (instrumental reading), Lynn White Jr. (as critic) Model Stewardship Humanity as tenant and keeper, not owner: inquiry and use bound by accountability to the earth’s Owner and to those who inherit it. Pope Francis (Laudato si’), Patriarch Bartholomew I, The Evangelical Environmental Network Model Sacramental Matter mediates grace: the world studied closely becomes transparent to its Maker, and things are judged as icons or idols. Maximus the Confessor, Michael Faraday, Alexander Schmemann Model Apophatic restraint The discipline of not saying: knowledge bounded by a confession that reality exceeds our formulations, in theology and in science alike. Georges Lemaître, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (theological source) Model Techno-asceticism Refusal as discipline: communities that govern tools by rule — fasting from technologies that would dissolve the goods the community exists to keep. The Old Order Amish churches, Wendell Berry, Jacques Ellul (as analyst)